The Prospector: Teddy Bridgewater proves to be no gamble as quarterback

When Bridgewater was coming out of high school, there were not a lot of colleges interested in offering the Miami Northwestern product a scholarship as a quarterback. He had seven total offers. TOTAL.

No matter what he did as a high school player. No matter how much he wowed coaches and scouts at camps and combines and 7-on-7 competitions, it never seemed to matter.

Even at a 2010 Steve Clarkson Dream Maker Quarterback Academy Camp, he wasn’t exactly considered the top of the field. There were players at the Citrus Bowl that day who were bigger prospects, like Jacoby Brissett of Palm Beach Gardens Dwyer, Bennie Coney of Plant City, Stevie Weatherford of Land O’ Lakes and Josh O’Grady of Seffner Armwood, just to name a few.

Everyone at the camp that day was of the opinion that Bridgewater would become a good college quarterback, but it always seemed he had to prove it everywhere he went.

He was always asked the same questions. He was always courteous and patient, answering every query with those same answers. Soft-spoken and polite, he never got flustered, never rattled, and handled all the pressure with ease.

From the first time I met Bridgewater he always said the same thing.

“I’m a quarterback.”

Many coaches saw the athletic Bridgewater as a future star at wide receiver or defensive back. Two schools, however, saw Bridgewater as he saw himself.

During the summer before Bridgewater’s last season at Northwestern in 2010, he committed to the University of Miami. Shortly afterward, however, Miami was hit with ShapiroGate and one of the guys losing his job in the fallout was former UM head coach Randy Shannon, now an assistant at Arkansas.

Shannon was a close family friend of the Bridgewaters, but Teddy tried to stay true to his ‘Canes and his commitment. He even said shortly after Shannon’s firing that it would have no effect on his status as a future Hurricane.

Time changed that stance, however. And with loyalty in question at UM, Charlie Strong snuck in and plucked the quarterback right out of the UM backyard. Florida had also recruited Bridgewater as a quarterback, and Strong was a Gators’ assistant back then under Urban Meyer. But Meyer left, and then so did Strong.

Strong did not leave his Florida connections, and one of the players he stayed on with his recruiting push was Bridgewater, especially after Shannon got fired. Bridgewater was impressed with Strong, and looking for loyalty, he sided with the head coach who appeared to be not only true to his word, but also set up in a pretty stable situation having just taken the reins at Louisville.

The rest is, as they say, history. As we’ve watched higher-ranked quarterbacks from the 2011 recruiting class struggle to find their place at the college level, Bridgewater has been rock solid as a consistently improving leader and quarterback who has lost just seven games of the 34 he’s started as a Cardinal.

Bridgewater was the No. 1 ranked quarterback in the state by the Sentinel’s former recruiting guru Bill Buchalter, who has retired from his Sentinel chores, but Buch was right about many players in his day and he was right about Bridgewater.

He ranked him ahead of Hagerty’s Jeff Driskel, who is coming off an injury at Florida; Brissett, who transferred from Florida to NC State this year; Tampa Plant’s Phillip Ely, the state champ who just transferred from Alabama to Toledo; and Lake Nona’s Kevin Sousa, who switched to receiver this year at Wake Forest.

Three other QBs who have had success as starters at their respective schools from the 2011 class have been Miami Central’s Rakeem Cato (Marshall), Winter Park’s Sam Richardson (Iowa State) and Tampa Jefferson’s Quentin Williams (Bethune-Cookman).

But above all, the top quarterback out of the class of 2011, and not only in the state but in the country, has been Bridgewater. He has 3,532 passing yards and 28 touchdowns this season. His Cardinals have lost one game, a heartbreaker to UCF, or they could be screaming about a BCS title game berth right now.

For Orlando football fans, they’ll be blessed with possibly Bridgewater’s final college game Saturday right here at the Russell Athletic Bowl. The junior has a decision to make. When he's done with college, he’ll be off to prove himself all over again.

Surely none of those doubters out there think he can actually be an NFL quarterback. Do they?